William Hurt: I don’t have any artefacts of my profession in my house – the Oscar is in storage

William Hurt – he’s not going to turn into Michael Jackson (Picture: by Gary Gershoff/Getty)

Actor William Hurt, 63, began his career in 1981’s Body Heat and won an Oscar for Kiss Of The Spider Woman in 1985. Despite his huge success, he says he’s just ‘a guy’.

In the TV series Bonnie & Clyde you play Frank Hamer, the detective who finally caught and killed them. Was he a real person? There was a historical figure by that name, yes, but he was not necessarily doing what we show in the film. It’s not a documentary, it’s an interpretation of a legend.

But Hamer did stop a lot of people – he was legendary in his tracking ability. He was fixated on Indians and he tracked like an Indian. He was also a very modest person, against false publicity and gratuitous attention, and was as hard on people inside the law who were criminals as he was on criminals outside the law. He was so interesting because he would not take money for his work.

How much did you know about the period of US history the show portrays before you took on the role? I knew about the Great Depression – my mum lived through that and was very poor. She grew up in the eastern desert of Oregon, in starvation-level poverty. Understanding the context that these characters were working in is probably more important than the specific details of the characters themselves.

Have you ever met any of the real-life characters you’ve played? I spent some time with Henry Paulson [the former US treasury secretary], who I played in Too Big To Fail. Three days with him were among the three most enjoyable days of my life. He’s a wonderful person – I’m a very big fan of Mr Paulson. I got a message from him after the film to say he thought I’d done a good job, which I really appreciated.

You seem to move seamlessly between TV, theatre and film. What’s your secret? I don’t see stage and film as different, I see them as one art form which embraces a lot of different avenues, from a commercial to a cartoon. Some of it is a bastardisation of the form.

My own idea of really great work isn’t a large percentage of the work that is made. But that is true of diamonds and pearls – something fine is, by its very nature, something rare. And I think looking for excellent things and fine things is a good use of your energy.

Where do you keep your Oscar? I don’t have any artefacts of my profession in my house; the Oscar is in storage. I am not a famous person at home – I’m just a guy here. I’m a father, I’m a companion, I’m a human being. I am not a public figure in my house, I am not a celebrity. I am not a famous person to myself, I am just a guy.

Many people who have this experience of getting fame do fall into that trap and have this idea that they have to live up to some idea of what is exp-ected of them… then you end up as Michael Jackson.

Do you read your own press and reviews? I actually Googled myself the other day for the first time. I just had a whim and thought I would check out what other people can check out. I already knew from the way some people walked up to me that they didn’t think good thoughts and I knew that they must have got that from a public source and that the judgments were harsh.

I found out what they said my net worth was. I didn’t know anyone thought that or I would have taken out special insurance. The figure was so astronomically off-base and so ill- informed – thousands of percentage points off-base – but you can’t go to someone and correct them on that sort of thing. I was just very surprised that anyone would publish that and that they would be so wrong.

You spend a lot of time at your home in France. What is it that appeals to you about that country? I was very lucky when I was a kid – I travelled a lot and spent a lot of time in Africa, Asia and Europe. I also chant in Sanskrit.

And European culture became very important to me – it wasn’t just an idea of culture over there, it was very real to me, I lived it. And for reasons I can’t really explain, I became funda- mentally galvanised by Gallic culture, by France.

It went a lot deeper than just the sound of a beautiful language or a pretty painting. I felt connected to it in a real way from very early on and very deeply. I am just as comfortable in Britain and France as I am in America… but nowhere is perfect.